Representation Of Students Research Articles

Mixed reviews on diversity initiatives: toward an institutional change model for Black faculty in engineering and computing

IntroductionUniversities across the United States have implemented initiatives to enhance diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, focusing on improving outcomes for racially minoritized students. While many diversity initiatives target undergraduate programs, there is a gap in support for STEM graduate students. Recognizing the persistent underrepresentation of racially diverse populations in STEM, the Biden-Harris Administration launched the “Raise the Bar: STEM Excellence for All Students” initiative, aiming to bolster STEM education nationwide. Foundations like the Sloan Foundation have developed pathways programs for STEM students, extending support into graduate school and the professoriate. The success of diversity initiatives often hinges on the participation and endorsement of underrepresented STEM faculty.MethodsThis study investigates the perspectives of twenty-nine Black engineering and computing faculty regarding diversity initiatives within their respective departments. Grounded theory methodology guided the qualitative analysis, enabling a deeper understanding of the racialized diversity management framework. Drawing on institutional racism perspectives, the study aimed to develop a theoretical framework elucidating institutional engagement with and implementation of diversity initiatives in engineering education.ResultsThe participants’ perspectives on diversity initiatives reflected features of organizational change. Three types of organizational environments emerged: 1) stagnant, characterized by aspirational commitments to diversity; 2) moderate, where underrepresented populations are recruited but expected to assimilate into the dominant culture; and 3) transformational, representing organizations taking significant steps towards creating equitable environments. The narratives of the study participants shed light on the varying effectiveness of efforts to increase the representation of successful Black students and faculty in engineering academia.DiscussionThe findings underscore the importance of understanding organizational contexts and dynamics in shaping the outcomes of diversity initiatives. By delineating the racialized diversity management framework, this study provides insights into the complexities of institutional engagement with diversity in engineering education. Addressing the challenges identified, particularly in environments characterized as stagnant or moderate, is crucial for advancing equity and inclusion in STEM fields. Effective diversity initiatives must go beyond recruitment efforts to create transformative, equitable environments conducive to the success of racially minoritized students and faculty in engineering academia.

Zero-1-to-3: Domain-Level Zero-Shot Cognitive Diagnosis via One Batch of Early-Bird Students towards Three Diagnostic Objectives

Cognitive diagnosis seeks to estimate the cognitive states of students by exploring their logged practice quiz data. It plays a pivotal role in personalized learning guidance within intelligent education systems. In this paper, we focus on an important, practical, yet often underexplored task: domain-level zero-shot cognitive diagnosis (DZCD), which arises due to the absence of student practice logs in newly launched domains. Recent cross-domain diagnostic models have been demonstrated to be a promising strategy for DZCD. These methods primarily focus on how to transfer student states across domains. However, they might inadvertently incorporate non-transferable information into student representations, thereby limiting the efficacy of knowledge transfer. To tackle this, we propose Zero-1-to-3, a domain-level zero-shot cognitive diagnosis framework via one batch of early-bird students towards three diagnostic objectives. Our approach initiates with pre-training a diagnosis model with dual regularizers, which decouples student states into domain-shared and domain-specific parts. The shared cognitive signals can be transferred to the target domain, enriching the cognitive priors for the new domain, which ensures the cognitive state propagation objective. Subsequently, we devise a strategy to generate simulated practice logs for cold-start students through analyzing the behavioral patterns from early-bird students, fulfilling the domain-adaption goal. Consequently, we refine the cognitive states of cold-start students as diagnostic outcomes via virtual data, aligning with the diagnosis-oriented goal. Finally, extensive experiments on six real-world datasets highlight the efficacy of our model for DZCD and its practical application in question recommendation. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/bigdata-ustc/Zero-1-to-3.

Prospective comparative study on enhancing geometrical mental representation and anatomical learning in medical students through modeling clay as an assessment tool.

While traditional anatomy education often emphasizes passive learning and rote memorization, it seldom employs constructivist theories that focus on active, hands-on experiences for effective learning. This study tests the hypothesis that tactile experiences with modeling clay enhance geometric mental representation more effectively than verbal descriptions. We examine the potential of clay modeling to reflect and evaluate students' mental representation of anatomical structures. Utilizing a prospective randomized, open, blind endpoint (PROBE) design, we engaged 36 participants divided into three groups: blind, visually impaired, and a control group. The primary outcome measure was the difference between post-touch score and pre-touch score, which gauged the efficacy of tactile intervention in enhancing the participants' capacity to mentally reconstruct a well-designed anatomical fiction structure. Scoring was executed using a double-blind double-evaluation methodology, positioning clay model reconstruction as both an objective reliable assessment and a pedagogical tool. The analysis demonstrated a pronounced improvement in mental representation of anatomical structures, particularly in spatial comprehension and detailed textural discernment, with the mean score soaring from 47.81 pre-touch to 85.09 post-touch. Distinct cognitive processing adaptations were evident across groups, with the blind group excelling in tactile acuity and the visually impaired group showing the most significant gains in spatial understanding post-intervention (Cohen's d = 2.74). The application of modeling clay as a tactile intervention tool can significantly improve the learning of anatomy among medical students. The study underscores the value of active, multisensory engagement and customized teaching strategies for effective anatomy education among this demographic.

Impact of a university teaching of integrative medicine on the social representations of undergraduate medical students.

Integrative medicine, need to be inoffensive, effective, and of quality (World Health Organization). In 2010, the American Society of Teachers of Family Medicine approved 19 competencies for teaching integrative medicine to residents. In 2018, the University of Rennes created a course: "Integrative Medicine and Complementary Therapies". Up until then, the only feedback from the courses was the students' opinions. We investigated the impact on medical students' social representation.We performed a sociological analysis of students' social representations before and after the course. The social representation is based on the way an individual creates his or her universe of beliefs and ideas. After hearing, "What word or group of words comes to mind when you hear people speak of integrative medicine and complementary therapies?", students were asked to provide 5 words/phrases, rank their importance, and show their attitude towards these words/phrases. The frequency and importance of these words/phrases were used to construct social representations (with central cores, and primary and secondary peripheries) before and after the course.Among the 101 students registered, 59 provided complete responses before and 63 after the course. Before, the central core comprised "hypnosis" and "alternative medicine", while after: "complementary care" and "global care". We only identified first periphery before the course: "acupuncture" and "homeopathy". 4 new contrasting elements: "integration with conventional treatment", "patient's choice", "personalisation of care", and "caring relationship of trust".This teaching course positively affected students' social representation of integrative medicine, and might promote their use during future practices.

The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance

Prior work has shown that many undergraduate students have misconceptions about genetic inheritance, even after they take genetics courses. Visual representations, such as pedigree diagrams, are commonly used in genetics instruction, and they help students quickly visualize the phenotypes of multiple generations. In Study 1, we examined whether presenting a pedigree diagram of a wolf’s eye color in a rich and realistic manner (i.e., with rich perceptual images that resemble real animals) or in an abstract manner (i.e., with circles and squares representing animals) would help undergraduates learn from a brief, online lesson on inheritance of the wolf’s eye color, and whether they would transfer what they learned when reasoning about eye color in other species (near transfer) and other traits in other species (mid- and far transfer). Counter to our hypothesis, students transferred more with the rich diagram. In Study 2, we compared the rich diagram from Study 1 to a perceptually bland diagram (i.e., with color and textural features removed). There were no differences in students’ learning or transfer between the diagrams. These results suggest that realistic elements that are attention grabbing and easily interpretable by students can be beneficial for transfer in online lessons.

Humanising case-based learning

Purpose of the article Medical undergraduates at St George’s, University of London (SGUL) study a weekly clinical case during their clinical science years. Audit of the human stories demonstrated lack of diversity, mono-professionalism, and objectification of some patients. A collaborative partnership with staff, student and patient representation implemented curriculum change, including an inclusive case-writing initiative. We explored whether the reformed written cases supported the development of positive attitudes by sampling perceptions of the cases amongst students. Methods Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted (Feb–November 2022) with first year medical students. We applied an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. Verbatim transcripts were coded and analysed to elucidate themes. Results Four themes were identified: (i) effective learning, (ii) clinical authenticity, (iii) authentic human stories, and (iv) opportunity for rehearsing the role of a doctor. Students perceived the cases as an effective, contextual learning method, with a high degree of clinical authenticity, allowing mentalisation of doctor attitudes and behaviours in relation to patient-centredness, multidisciplinary team working and diversity. Conclusion The results suggest the reformed cases created positive attitudinal change amongst students and supported transition to clinical roles. Memorable human stories had the greatest impact. Dynamic, inclusive, and collaborative case writing initiatives which integrate realism, diversity and multi-professionalism may help to foster positive experiences in students undertaking CBL sessions.

Modeling students' preferences and knowledge for improving educational achievements

Student modeling is a fundamental aspect in customized learning environments. It enables unified representation of students' characteristics that supports creating personalized learning experiences. This paper aims to build an effective student model by combining learning preferences with skill levels. A student profile is formulated upon detecting the user's learning styles and learning preferences, as well as their knowledge level and misconceptions. The pieces of information are collected through an interactive online platform, by completing personal and knowledge assessment quizzes. Moreover, a learner can make his/her profile open for other learners as a starting point for supporting collaborative learning. The results showed an improvement of students' educational achievements who used the platform, and the satisfaction level reported by non-neutral users was averaged as a score of 90%. The evaluation of this platform showed promising results regarding its ability in describing students in a comprehensive manner.

KEMAMPUAN REPRESENTASI DALAM MEMECAHKAN MASALAH MATEMATIKA BERDASARKAN GAYA BELAJAR

Solving problems requires the ability to recall the information needed and represented both visually and verbally. This information is obtained, managed and recalled through a system called learning style. This research was conducted at Asy-Syifa Al-Inayah Middle School, Jambi City, with the aim of obtaining a description of student representation in solving mathematical problems. Subjects in this study were selected using purposive sampling based on visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. It is hoped that this research will provide benefits in improving mathematics learning. The results of the research show that the representation of auditory students and visual students in solving mathematical problems each fulfills three indicators, while kinesthetic students only fulfill two indicators of mathematical representation. In presenting information, visual and auditory subjects each tend to present it in the form of images (geometry or number patterns) and create situations based on the problem given. Meanwhile, kinesthetic subjects tend to only create images to clarify problems and facilitate their resolution. In solving problems, both visual and auditory subjects are able to solve problems by making patterns based on the problem given and making conclusions from a pattern. It's just that auditory subjects can shorten problem solving steps by using mathematical expressions. Meanwhile, kinesthetic subjects experience problems in solving combinatorics problems, where they are unable to present images or patterns that can help solve the problem.

Developing Student Expertise in Evolution: Cognitive Construals Complement Key Concepts in Student Representations.

Genetic variation is historically challenging for undergraduate students to master, potentially due to its grounding in both evolution and genetics. Traditionally, student expertise in genetic variation has been evaluated using Key Concepts. However, Cognitive Construals may add to a more nuanced picture of students' developing expertise. Here, we analyze the occurrence of Key Concepts and Cognitive Construals among three types of student representations: interviews, drawn models, and constructed responses (CRs). Our mixed-methods analysis indicates that differential survival and differential reproduction occur more often in interviews than in CRs. In our interviews, presence of Cognitive Construals indicate varying levels of understanding of genetic variation, but we were not able to detect Cognitive Construals in students' models or CRs. Finally, our analyses of both Key Concepts and Cognitive Construals in student representations indicate that Cognitive Construals can co-occur with any number of Key Concepts, and that the presence of Construal-based language alone does not seem to correlate to the expert nature of a response. Taken together, our results highlight the need for instructors to avoid treating Construal-based language as implicit disconnects in student understanding, and to use multiple methods to gain a holistic picture of student expertise.

Exploring Open Education Pedagogy in Research Methods Classrooms: Diversifying Methods

The benefits of open educational practices that invite students to collaborate and interactively create knowledge are well known. Despite this, it remains underutilized for teaching in research methods classrooms. This article presents a framework for using open pedagogy in undergraduate research methods courses. Drawing upon the knowledge authors acquired from the Open Educational Practices certificate program, this article outlines the development and application of a renewable assignment for research methods, and provides a critical reflection of the students’ experiences. The assignment tasks students with creating an open educational resource that addresses a gap in the existing textbook. Students are asked to identify research methods in other disciplines or look for diverse representations of knowledge acquisition by a community to which they belong. The authors find that this renewable assignment helped students think critically about the potential limitations of the research methods covered in textbooks. Additionally, having students create content that will be used in future iterations of the class increased their level of enthusiasm and excitement for learning. Furthermore, this article discusses how the creation of a renewable assignment in an institutional setting with large minority student representation advanced various aspects of social justice. Particularly, how the assignment and students’ experiences in the creation of knowledge addressed redistributive (having free access to resources), recognitive (views from diverse socio-cultural groups), and representational (self-determination of marginalized peoples) justice. The article concludes with a discussion on the ways to build on the success of this pilot project.

Analysis of the verbal image of Russia and Russians in the process of teaching RFL

Importance. The development of a positive attitude towards Russia and its inhabitants is a priority task for a teacher of Russian as a foreign language. It seems necessary to carry out purposeful work in creating a system of verbal images of Russia and Russians in the representation of foreign students. The purpose of the study is to explore the theoretical prerequisites for studying the verbal image and describing the components of the verbal image of Russia and Russians among foreign students.Materials and Methods. The results analysis of a survey conducted among international undergraduate students at the Institute of Russian as a Foreign Language of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University revealed the components of the verbal image of Russia. The data obtained are taken into account when teaching Russian as a foreign language to form a positive image of the country.Results and Discussion. The results analysis of the first survey of foreign students revealed negative associations in the minds of foreigners, which must be corrected, as they reduce motivation to master the Russian language. The results of the second survey of foreign students after training demonstrate the presence of positive verbal images in their minds, proving the effectiveness of the training.Conclusion. The results obtained in the course of the study have theoretical and practical significance, as they enable a teacher of Russian as a foreign language to predict possible negative verbal images of Russia among foreign students, take them into account when teaching Russian to foreigners and, thereby, make the process more effective.

Using continua to analyze qualitative data investigating epistemic beliefs about physics knowledge: Visualizing beliefs

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Qualitative Methods in PER: A Critical Examination.] Epistemic beliefs about physics are most often investigated using quantitative instruments that reflect binary conceptualizations of those beliefs. This study reports from a qualitative study which used continua to represent the epistemic beliefs about physics knowledge of sixteen Western Canadian, high school physics teachers. Unlike other research, this study did not intend to compare epistemic beliefs to any specific epistemology of science. This article presents a novel, more nuanced means of analyzing interview data to construct profiles to describe epistemic beliefs. The epistemic belief profiles of the physics teachers in this study reflect each of four areas of a literature-derived theoretical framework regarding epistemic beliefs about physics knowledge. These four areas are individuals’ beliefs about the (a) source, (b) content, (c) certainty, and (d) structure of physics knowledge. The use of thematic analysis research methods and reasons for the placement of participants along continua are discussed. Potential classroom applications of this research include prompting discussions about student epistemic beliefs and collecting more nuanced representations of students’ epistemic beliefs to inform teaching. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

The representation of mature students in governing bodies of a Portuguese university

With this text, we try to understand if – and if so, how – mature students are represented by and in the governing bodies of higher education institutions. With a theoretical framework that values above all the institutional dimension, we carried out thirteen semi-structured interviews with students and faculty members who are part of the various governing bodies with student representation of a Portuguese higher education institution. The data show that (i) the functioning of these bodies tends to be known only by the students who participate in them, (ii) the bodies usually react to, rather than prevent, the problems that arise, (iii) mature students are perceived as a source of ‘difficulties’ and ‘needs’, and (iv) student representation in governing bodies does not seem to fairly and equitably represent all students, and some specificities of mature students (among other underrepresented groups) seem to be made invisible.

Quantification and the homogeneous representation of urban students in school choice research and politics

ABSTRACT In education, low-income and racially minoritized students in urban districts are often constructed as ‘dependent’ – weak in their social positions but deserving of educational opportunity. This social construction of ‘urban’ students has been central to school choice politics and policymaking in the United States. In this study, I interrogate one particular aspect of this social construction: the way low-income and racially minoritized students are represented in quantitative data. I use school choice in Detroit, Michigan as an illustrative case; I conduct a critical discourse analysis of exchanges between former United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and members of Congress about school choice, and the quantitative research referenced during those exchanges. The study demonstrates how dominant conceptions of ‘urban’ education in the United States influence the production of data and research on school choice, and in turn the role those quantifications play in school choice discourse.

Racial and Ethnic Bias in Scholastic Achievement Awards: A Collective Dual Language Case Study

ABSTRACT This mixed-methods case study examines data for over 1,500 student awards at two dual language elementary schools collected over the course of two years. Using descriptive statistics, this paper examines student representation by demographics in quarterly scholastic awards. Through document analysis of award descriptions, we analyze how students were selected by their teachers. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a theoretical framework, findings show that across both schools, Latinx students were underrepresented in scholastic awards while White students were overrepresented. After examining and discussing student award data, this paper contextualizes the data within the literature on unconscious bias, inequity in DLBE programs, data-based SWPBIS systems, and explores implications for further research and school-based leadership.

Light-M: An efficient lightweight medical image segmentation framework for resource-constrained IoMT

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is being incorporated into current healthcare systems. This technology intends to connect patients, IoMT devices, and hospitals over mobile networks, allowing for more secure, quick, and convenient health monitoring and intelligent healthcare services. However, existing intelligent healthcare applications typically rely on large-scale AI models, and standard IoMT devices have significant resource constraints. To alleviate this paradox, in this paper, we propose a Knowledge Distillation (KD)-based IoMT end-edge-cloud orchestrated architecture for medical image segmentation tasks, called Light-M, aiming to deploy a lightweight medical model in resource-constrained IoMT devices. Specifically, Light-M trains a large teacher model in the cloud server and employs computation in local nodes through imitation of the performance of the teacher model using knowledge distillation. Light-M contains two KD strategies: (1) active exploration and passive transfer (AEPT) and (2) self-attention-based inter-class feature variation (AIFV) distillation for the medical image segmentation task. The AEPT encourages the student model to learn undiscovered knowledge/features of the teacher model without additional feature layers, aiming to explore new features and outperform the teacher. To improve the distinguishability of the student for different classes, the student learns the self-attention-based feature variation (AIFV) between classes. Since the proposed AEPT and AIFV only appear in the training process, our framework does not involve any additional computation burden for a student model during the segmentation task deployment. Extensive experiments on cardiac images and public real-scene datasets demonstrate that our approach improves student model learning representations and outperforms state-of-the-art methods by combining two knowledge distillation strategies. Moreover, when deployed on the IoT device, the distilled student model takes only 29.6 ms for one sample at the inference step.

Student voice in educational research: reflections on an international mixed-method study

ABSTRACT This article reports on an international mixed-method study on student leadership that sought to maximize opportunities for students to be engaged as researchers. Applying the conceptual lens of student voice, we reflect on students’ contributions to each stage of the research. This included efforts to integrate the components of Mitra’s ‘pyramid of student’ voice – listening, collaboration, and leadership – into the research design, data collection, and analysis. We worked with ‘research ambassador’ teams consisting of two students and one teacher at 12 schools in Australia, Argentina, China, Chile, India (two schools), New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Tanzania, and the United States. The students enhanced the research quality by playing an integral role in an online survey (n = 8,455) and interviews (n = 114) with students and teachers worldwide. The successes involved illuminating student perspectives, gathering contextual knowledge, and (potentially) overcoming power disparities. The pitfalls were a steep learning curve, navigating cross-cultural differences, and persistent power disparities. Our recommendations centred on maintaining a balance between adult researchers sharing foundational knowledge and fostering student voice. To conclude, we discuss the role of student-adult research partnerships and student representation in furthering student voice, as well as how other school stakeholders could contribute to research.

Impact of the Metacognitive Educational Program Cogni'Scol on the Academic Success of Middle School Students

AbstractWhat can be done to promote the academic success of learners? More than a question, it is a major challenge of our time. In this perspective, metacognition seems to be a way to empower learners to take ownership of their academic success. Considering the recommendations established in the literature, we co‐constructed with teachers a metacognitive educational program, called Cogni'Scol, based on brain functioning in learning. Its benefits were determined through a longitudinal study focusing on the academic success of French students. We followed sixth grade students over a two‐year period who either benefited or not from a weekly session of the Cogni'Scol program. Results showed a significant effect on students' knowledge and representations of brain functioning but not on the students' academic performances mediated by improvements in their metacognition. We conclude with pragmatic reflections for researchers and educational professionals interested in the implementation of educational programs based on brain functioning in learning.

Perbedaan Peningkatan Kemampuan Representasi Matematis Siswa PBL Berbantuan Geogebra dan DL Di Kelas X SMA

This study aims to understand the impact of problem-based learning (PBL) on mathematical representation in students using Geogebra and model discovery learning in X SMAS Tamansiswa Singosari. It uses quasi-experimental research with purposive sampling and control group design. The results show that all data is normal and homogeneous, with a value of 4.71>2.03. The study also reveals that the overall learning process for experimental students is better than that of control students.

Exploring Democracy Beyond the State: Students’ Union Democracy in Chilean Colleges

Political scientists have studied state democracy for decades using sophisticated methods for conceptualization and measurement to evaluate the explanatory power of various theories. They have paid little attention, however, to democracy in nonstate political systems. This paper fills this gap by characterizing democracy in college student government and investigating the factors affecting the levels of students’ union democracy (SUD) in Chilean colleges. Utilizing concepts from political science and sociology, the study identifies different dimensions of SUD with data from 162 campuses in 2018. The dimensions are aggregated to build an index of democracy for students’ unions. Although the majority of Chilean university students attended colleges with democratic unions, our findings reveal a deficit in democratic student representation in most institutions. The article also draws from the comparative politics, trade union democracy, and higher education literatures to explore the factors that vary by institution that could explain differences in levels of SUD. Ordered logistic regression analyses suggest that SUD is associated with institutional quality, membership in inter-university organizations, and student body size and socioeconomic makeup. The results increase our understanding of the features, status, and correlates of democracy beyond the state.